


You and Me, Old Girl

by Shadowcrawler



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen, Introspection, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-20
Updated: 2011-05-20
Packaged: 2017-10-19 15:02:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/202135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowcrawler/pseuds/Shadowcrawler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Look at you pair. It’s always you and her, isn’t it? Long after the rest of us have gone - the boy and his box, off to save the universe.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	You and Me, Old Girl

**Author's Note:**

> Contains vague spoilers for series 6, in particular 6x04 "The Doctor's Wife."

“We have had some times, haven’t we, old girl?”

He runs his hand gently, absently, down one of the smooth metal-y bits of the control panel. It’s got a proper name of course, but right now he’s too tired to bother thinking it. “It’s always you and me, eh? Rather poetic, really, the sort of thing of myths and legends. The madman with his big blue box, both the last of their kinds, roaming through time and space together…” He lets the sentence trail off, because it really doesn’t have an ending – though of course it does, but who wants to know the ending of their own story? Nobody, that’s who, except for morbid people and he’s not one of those sorts, although perhaps he might look it to the outsider considering his customary delight at encountering various less-than-peaceful species…

But he’s gotten ahead of himself again, and begun wandering aimlessly about the room as he so often does when he’s deep in thought. Now where had he been? Oh yes! “I don’t suppose you can really understand what that means to me,” he continues, sure as he's sure that his next breath would bring air to his lungs that she can hear him. “But I just…” That’s funny, that lump wasn’t there a moment ago. Funny how the events of a day could make one so easily emotional…but of course, it hadn’t been any regular old day. “I just wanted to say…you’re fantastic, you are. You’re brilliant, you sexy thing.”

Then he thinks he hears something, a sound so faint he thought he might have imagined it once it stops: a sigh, soft as a warm summer breeze.

\---------

For whatever reason - the room’s slightly lowered temperature or the sound of Rory’s gentle but steady snoring or just the constant stream of thoughts running through her head - on this night, Amy Pond suddenly finds herself wide awake.

It’s always exasperating when things like this happen, mainly because no matter how hard one tries to convince one’s brain that this is supposed to be sleepy-time, it rarely works. And so she lies there for a moment, keenly aware of Rory’s arm gently resting on her waist and the rhythm of air going in and out, in and out from his nostrils, accompanied by a faint wheezing. Amy finds it rather endearing, though she’d never tell him so.

Finally, she gives up trying to go back to sleep and gingerly slides out from under Rory’s arm, grabbing one of the extra blankets from the foot of the bed (fortunately now a queen-size bed – trying to fit two adult bodies comfortably into a twin-size bunk had been quite taxing at times) and wrapping it around herself for warmth. Apparently House had done some rather nasty things while occupying the TARDIS, including resetting the temperature controls to the original setting, which left the entire interior ten degrees cooler than she and Rory were used to. Gooseflesh prickles on her arms as she steps outside the (relative) warmth of their bedroom and heads for the main control room.

 _Maybe he’ll be up for a late-night chat._ That's one curious thing – she hasn't figured out yet where the Doctor sleeps, or _if_ he sleeps. He never seemed to, but then maybe Time Lords require much less sleep than humans.

It isn’t a far walk to the main control room, but when she reaches the door, a sight she never thought she’d see greets her. There he is, fast asleep and curled up in one of the odd little chairs by the console, with his hand stretched out and resting on the railing. It was almost as if he’d been _petting_ it, as if it were a cat, and he’d drifted off in the middle.

Of course this isn’t the first time she’s caught him stroking bits of the TARDIS when he thought she wasn’t paying attention. She finds it rather amusing, and even more so now that she knows what he calls the ship when he’s alone with it. “Sexy” – it’s not a word she’d ever thought would cross his lips. But then, she’s learned a lot of surprising things about him since that first meeting so many years ago.

She tiptoes over to him, checking warily to make sure he really is asleep and isn’t going to bounce up in her face once she’s leaning over him, and then giggle like a little boy when she shrieks and jumps back. No, his chest rises and falls in the deep breaths of real sleep. And he's shivering a bit.

On a whim she takes the blanket from around her own shoulders and places it over him, bending down to plant a kiss on his forehead. “There now,” she murmurs, “that’s better, hmm?”

She wishes she could freeze time right here and now, so that he could stay in this moment forever, his expression so tranquil and content as he holds onto the TARDIS – much like, she realizes, Rory holds onto her in his sleep. She wishes she could alter events to come, and all the horrible days her raggedy Doctor has ahead of him, especially _that_ day...

But she can’t, of course, so she just swallows the lump in her throat, says “Sleep well, you two,” and turns to head back to bed, knowing that tomorrow will hold yet another adventure for the boy and his big blue box.


End file.
